I didn't see any posts about this story, so I figured I'd start one. I don't know if anyone here has been following on the story of Jack Thompson and this proposal he has made of offering $10k to charity if a gaming company will make a video game of his specifications.

Here's the proposal:

Quote:

"Do unto others as you would have them do unto you." The Golden Rule

This writer has been saying for seven years that violent video games can be "murder simulators" that incite as well as train some obsessive teen players to be violent.

I've been on 60 Minutes and in Reader's Digest this year explaining how an Alabama teen, with no criminal record, shot two policemen and a dispatcher in their heads and fled in a police car--a scenario he rehearsed for hundreds of hours on Take-Two/Rockstar's Grand Theft Auto video games.

I have sat with boys in jail cells, their lives over because of murder convictions, after they, with no history of violence, have killed innocents while in a dreamlike state. Said one cop who investigated such a murder in Grand Rapids, Michigan: "The killing was like an extension of the game."

The video game industry, through its lawyers, its spokesmen, and its head lobbyist, Doug Lowenstein, the president of the Entertainment Software Association, all say it is utter nonsense to suggest that what is dumped into a kid's head hour after hour, day after day, year after year, could possibly have behavioral consequences. Cigarette ads can persuade kids to smoke, but interactive simulators in which these same kids punch, hack, bludgeon, and maim affect not a wit their attitudes and behaviors, notwithstanding the findings of the American Psychological Association, published in August 2005.

The video game industry says Sticks and stones can break my bones, but games can never hurt me. Fine. I have a modest proposal for the video game industry. I'll write a check for $10,000 to the favorite charity of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc's chairman, Paul Eibeler - a man Bernard Goldberg ranks as #43 in his book 100 People Who Are Screwing Up America - if any video game company will create, manufacture, distribute, and sell a video game in 2006 like the following:

Osaki Kim is the father of a high school boy beaten to death with a baseball bat by a 14-year-old gamer. The killer obsessively played a violent video game in which one of the favored ways of killing is with a bat. The opening scene, before the interactive game play begins, is the Los Angeles courtroom in which the killer is sentenced "only" to life in prison after the judge and the jury have heard experts explain the connection between the game and the murder.

Osaki Kim (O.K.) exits the courtroom swearing revenge upon the video game industry whom he is convinced contributed to his son's murder. "Vengeance is mine, I will repay" he says. And boy, is O.K. not kidding.

O.K. first hops a plane from LAX to New York to reach the Long Island home of the CEO of the company (Take This) that made the murder simulator on which his son's killer trained. O.K. gets "justice" by taking out this female CEO, whose name is Paula Eibel, along with her husband and kids. "An eye for an eye," says O.K., as he urinates onto the severed brain stems of the Eibel family victims, just as you do on the decapitated cops in the real video game Postal2.

O.K. then works his way, methodically back to LA by car, but on his way makes a stop at the Philadelphia law firm of Blank, Stare and goes floor by floor to wipe out the lawyers who protect Take This in its wrongful death law suits. "So sue me" O.K. spits, with singer Jackson Brown's 1980's hit Lawyers in Love blaring.

Of course, O.K. makes the obligatory runs to virtual versions of brick and mortar retailers Best Buy, Circuit City, Target, and Wal-Mart to steal supplies and bludgeon store managers and cash register clerks. "You should have checked kids' IDs!"

O.K. pushes on to Los Angeles. He must get there by May 10, 2006. That is the beginning of "E3" -- the Electronic Entertainment Expo -- the Super Bowl of the video game industry. O.K. must get to E3 to massacre all the video game industry execs with one final, monstrously delicious rampage.

How about it, video game industry? I've got the check and you've got the tech. It's all a fantasy, right? No harm can come from such a game, right? Go ahead, video game moguls. Target yourselves as you target others. I dare you.

Jack Thompson is a Miami lawyer who has for 18 years been involved in efforts to stop the marketing of adult entertainment to minors.

After reading that proposal, I am convinced that this guy is a total fucking nutjob. I can really see this guy as one who doesn't blame parents for bad upbringing, and says video games are the downfall of the next generation.

What got my attention to this was an article from Penny Arcade about their reaction to the proposal and apparently Thompson's rebuttal (making threats and screaming at Gabe on the phone). Tycho put it best when he says:

Quote:

He's essentially holding money hostage from charity, and if someone did make it, even as a joke, he would say that it didn't conform to his "design." This sort of thing is usually called a shell-game.

Sargeras Gudluvin - R.I.P. old friend - January 9, 2005
Sovereign - R.I.P. old friends - June 19, 2008
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I cannot say good-bye to those whom I have grown to love, for the memories we have made will last a lifetime and never know a good-bye. They are a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.

I think these games he thinks should be banned are actually useful in weeding out the really messed up teens out there and getting them off the streets. Yeah, the guy is a nut job but the game sounds like a winner! I look forward to seeing it.

Thats just like the Columbine kids who shot up their school. They blamed that on theh fact they played Doom. Their partents didnt know they were making plans and bombs in their garage?
How about focusing on how these kids get guns and are raised.

They same thing was said about the AD&D game. One psycho kid kills himself. They find AD&D books in his dorm room and it was its fault. I had a roomate who went to school with the kid. That kid didnt even play AD&D only a few times but people always look for an excuse. AD&D must be a satanic game and thats why he killed himself. It wasn't because the kid was on drugs it must be a game. Blehh
It sounds like those kids who klled cops were in a daze and on drugs too and bad parents. Just my opinion.

Sargeras Gudluvin - R.I.P. old friend - January 9, 2005
Sovereign - R.I.P. old friends - June 19, 2008
---------------------------------------------------
I cannot say good-bye to those whom I have grown to love, for the memories we have made will last a lifetime and never know a good-bye. They are a way of holding on to the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose.

It is amazing how people want to errode our civil liberties and rights. It is a broad and un-ending fight. Apply this crap to any other topic of debate. Freedom of speech, abortion, gay marriage, gun ownership just to name a few. Its all bullshit and the champions of the feces rear their ugly dumbass heads and the crap spews forth. Dont forget your waders cause its gonna get deep.

Finding new and improved ways of getting myself killed..
http://www.magelo.com/eq_view_profile.html?num=725406

I honestly dont believe why people would blame products of violence for the actions of other people when it is clearly the in-ability of the kids parents to actually parent them. Guns dont kill people, kids dont kill people, its the kids paraents who didnt teach them right that kill people.

Jack Thompson’s $10k Joke:
Over the last few days, Penny Arcade has had an interesting run in with Jack Thompson because the PA crew sent an e-mail to Jack that made fun of the anti-video game lawyer’s ludicrous $10k offer that has gotten so much press lately. As one might expect, hilarious antics ensued after Mr. Thompson called / threatened Penny Arcade but that isn’t the end of it. After Penny Arcade pointed out that they have raised $500,000 for charity in two years compared to Jack’s $10k offer, Mr. Thompson made a statement saying the $10k offer was “satire”. So Penny Arcade made the $10,000 donation for him. What better way to make Mr. Thompson eat his words than to honor the donation he now calls “a joke”? I have been friends with Jerry and Mike at PA for a few years now and they never cease to impress me.

You know what, Jack? We're going to be the men you're not. You said that your insulting, illusory ten thousand dollars would go to the charity of Paul Eibeler's choice. We've got a good guess that he'd direct your nonexistent largesse toward The Entertainment Software Association Foundation, a body that has raised over six point seven million dollars over the last eight years. We've just made the donation you never would, and never meant to. Ten thousand dollars' worth. And we made it in your name.

I have to agree that this guy is WAY over the edge. I don't believe that games should be help 100% responsible for the decline of American youth, but I believe they could cause some people to to act out scenes from games without fully understanding the consequences. I did a term paper on the effect of violence on television and found some very disturbing articles, mostly about children. A boy basically turned his little brother into a vegitable when he hit him in the head with a frying pan after watching Tom & Jerry cartoons. He was 6 I think. That is understandable if you can't tell the difference between right and wrong. These are the people that blame games for their crimes, the ones that lose track of reality...so there's already something wrong to start with. But hey, I no Dr...just my opinion.

WTF ever happened to some people are just screwed up? We seem to have to justify everything that goes wrong for people these days. Why can't there just be some people who are crazy? There is no way we will ever understand 100% of the human psyche, so guess what. Some people are gonna go off the deep end sometimes no matter what you do. You cannot stop it, no more than you can stop the Earth from spinning.

Millions of people play these games, and watch violent movies and aren't out there going apeshit. There's always people who aren't just right in the head. It's all a game for people like Jack Thompson, the name of the game is 'I want to be a millionaire.' The real tragedy is the idiots who actually think he is right. There will never be a world that's 100% safe, END OF STORY.

I worked with some people who blamed games, music, TV, and movies for all of the worlds problems. I was pregnant at the time with my first child and was even told the horrors of immunization shots. Jack Thompson reminds me of these people, but he scares me more than they did, because he is a fanatic who wants fame and glory.